GNU M4

Introduction to GNU M4

GNU M4 is an implementation of the traditional Unix macro
processor. It is mostly SVR4 compatible although it has some
extensions (for example, handling more than 9 positional parameters to
macros). GNU M4 also has built-in functions for including files,
running shell commands, doing arithmetic, etc.

GNU M4 is a macro processor in the sense that it copies its input to
the output expanding macros as it goes. Macros are either builtin or
user-defined and can take any number of arguments. Besides just doing
macro expansion, m4 has builtin functions for including named files,
running UNIX commands, doing integer arithmetic, manipulating text in
various ways, recursion etc... m4 can be used either as a front-end to
a compiler or as a macro processor in its own right.

Documentation

GNU M4 documentation can be found in several formats at
http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/manual/.
You may also find more information about GNU M4 by looking at your
local documentation. For example, you might try looking in
/usr/share/doc/m4/, or use info m4 at the shell prompt.

You can subscribe to any GNU mailing list via the web as described
below. Or you can send an empty mail with a Subject: header line of
just "subscribe" to the relevant -request list. For example, to
subscribe yourself to the bug-m4 list, you would
send mail to <bug-m4-request@gnu.org>
with no body and a Subject: header line of just "subscribe".

It has been necessary to moderate the GNU M4 mailing lists to prevent the
flood of spam. Postings to the lists are held for release by
the list moderator. Sometimes the moderators are unavailable for
brief periods of time. Please be patient when posting. If you
don't see the message in the list archive then it did not get posted.

Announcements

The low-volume mailing list
m4-announce contains all announcements about GNU M4. Important
announcments about M4 and most other GNU Software are also made on
<info-gnu@gnu.org>.

Tracking Development

The moderate-volume mailing list
bug-m4
tracks all bug reports. For more information on submitting bugs,
please see the section Report a Bug below.

The moderate-volume mailing list
m4-patches
is used to propose and track all significant patches. GNU M4 is being
actively developed, and version 2.0 will have many new features, such
as better input control, multiple precision arithmetic and loadable
modules. More information about the future of GNU M4 is
at
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/m4/. You can track development
in git, using:

Please note that we do not suggest using test versions of GNU M4 for
production use. One feature of the 2.0 release will be translations;
you can track the progress of the i18n team at
http://translationproject.org/domain/m4.html.

Request an Enhancement

If you would like any new feature to be included in future versions
of GNU M4, please send a request to
m4-discuss.
This list tends to have a moderate volume of traffic.

Please remember that development of GNU M4 is a volunteer effort, and
you can also contribute to its development. For information about
contributing to the GNU Project, please read How to
help GNU.

Report a Bug

If you think you have found a bug in GNU M4, then please send as
complete a report as possible to
<bug-m4@gnu.org>. This includes what platform and compiler
you used to build M4, what version of M4 you are attempting to use,
and transcripts of any error messages or behavior that was contrary to
your expectations. Disagreements between the manual and the code are
also bugs.